(1812) Crashed earlier, surfacing now. Memo to self … if you set quizzes, Jimbo, at least be around for them.
19. It’s not just us then?
18. Steve has, at 858
… two pieces on the rally at MSG and the DNC tried dirty tricks around the Hitler jibe, inc. projecting propaganda on the wall.
17. Andy has a piece at 858 on an RN sub
… which ran out of food due to its supply vessel not turning up:
However, the Royal Navy has denied any allegations of food shortages or safety risks, maintaining that the submarine’s crew consistently received a “nutritionally balanced diet” throughout the mission. An official spokesperson affirmed, “Robust procedures ensure crew safety at all times on missions.”
16. Moving home with Charlie is his moniker
I just tried listening to Starmer’s speech. I had to stop. It was making me too angry.
I (once) tried employment. I worked for large companies. Insurance, Banking, Derivatives Broking. It wasn’t for me.
When I left (ok, got fired) to become self-employed (hence not a “working person” in Starmer’s view), my quality of life immediately improved (as a car valeter), many people turned against me out of pure envy. They didn’t want to wash cars. No, they weren’t willing to work that hard. They just wanted my freedoms, but weren’t willing to put in the work required to get it.
Some of them, between jobs, came and asked me for work. I gave it to them. It made them hate me even more. Some of them, friends whom I trusted, even stole from me. This was when I was 23 years old. I employed 16 people in a hand car wash, in Crawley station car park.
For some reason, that enraged those people more, as if I was doing something wrong. They were angry with me, like I had done something wrong. It’s important to note that there were plenty of people, old friends, who congratulated me and wished me well, and even said “I wish I’d had the courage to do the same”.
It’s not for everyone. All I had done was choose to take a chance on myself. They were angry, because they didn’t have the courage to do it. They should have been angry with themselves. They let themselves down, I didn’t.
Some of them tried self-employment, but half-heartedly, failed, and gave up almost immediately. That made it even worse. I failed, repeatedly, but just kept going, a little stronger and wiser each time.
Eventually, at the ripe old age of 26 I got into the tech world, in property. Suddenly I was working in an office, with a team. I was the boss. I had clients, investors, money was coming in. We were changing things. We opened an office in Australia, because a big client asked us to. I found myself flying back and forth between London and Sydney, signing clients, working up to 20 hours a day, having the best time, seeing the world.
At this point, employing some 40 people, some of my old friends just stopped talking to me altogether. “Who the hell does he think he is?” as though me starting a business and creating jobs was an affront to them. I could go on, you get the idea.
What’s my point? Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and many of the Cabinet are the kinds of people who never had the courage to start anything themselves, and deeply resent those of us who have, because we are a living reminder of their weakness of character.
Now they have power, it is their time for revenge. They truly, deeply, viscerally hate free-thinking, harder-working (than employees), change-making people. It’s an affront to their misguided sense of self-importance. They hate the self employed. You’re not “working people”. You’re not a pay-rolled wage slave they can control.
Plumbers? No, you’re not hard working apparently. Feckless, self employed layabouts. We’ll soon tax you into submission. Farmers? Hard working, obviously not. So you’re completely f***ed. Successful small business people who have worked hard, saved up and invested? F*** you. Prepare to reap the rewards of bitterness and jealousy from people who believe in “equality of outcome” over “equality of opportunity.”
There are people I know who are fighting and grinding themselves into the ground in the face of ever weakening economic demand, paying wages, having no time for their families. To suggest these people aren’t hard working is an egregious affront, and in today’s speech, Starmer has doubled down on his use of this language.
This budget is going to be a disaster. The politics of envy, enacted through a budget.
[Important point: this is in no way a criticism of people who don’t choose self employment. Many people choose employed careers, are fulfilled, happy and do very well, and I have many great friends who have done just that. It is only a commentary on those who are unhappy with their life choices, but not willing to do anything about it. Instead they attack anyone who makes them feel inadequate, when their inadequacies are purely of their own making.]